All posts tagged ‘Matt Leacock’

Forbidden Island is a wonderful, easy-to-learn cooperative board game designed by Matt Leacock, the guy behind Pandemic (also fantastic). The game was a Mensa Select Game in 2010 and was nominated for the Spiel des Jahres earlier this year. The game has up to four players racing to acquire four treasures from an island before it sinks into the sea. What’s really great is that kids can play the game along with their parents, but the difficulty level can be ramped up for more experienced players, too.

Now you can explore Forbidden Island from the (relative) safety of your iPad! The $4.99 app, released last week by Gamewright and Button Mash Games, is a pretty faithful reproduction of the game that takes care of a lot of the fiddly stuff you have to remember to do but retains the building tension and excitement of the original. It’s not entirely without its faults (but I’ve got my physical-versus-electronic leanings) but it’s still a pretty cool way to take Forbidden Island with you.

Just another day in the life of an adventurer: exploring the island hideaway of the ancient mysterious Archean civilization in your attempt to secure the four sacred artifacts which control the Earth’s core elements. Of course, the Archeans couldn’t let these precious treasures wind up in the wrong hands, so they rigged the island to sink if anyone ever discovered it. (What happened to these guys, anyway? You’d think a civilization that could rule over Earth, Fire, Wind and Water might have an edge on surviving, but apparently not.) Your job is to get in, get the treasures, and helicopter off the island before the waters rise.

Forbidden Island is a new game designed by Matt Leacock, who is best known for Pandemic, a brilliant board game about combating the spread of disease. (I’m planning to write about that one eventually as well.) What both games have in common, unlike many that you may have played, is that they rely on cooperation. Everyone is on the same team, and you all win or lose together. There are pros and cons to this, which I’ll address a little later.

The Basics

Forbidden Island is for 2-4 players, ages 10 and up, and takes roughly 30 minutes to play. The game comes with 24 island tiles, 58 cards, 6 pawns, 4 treasure figurines and a water meter, all in a nice metal tin roughly the size of a large hardcover book (say, the last Harry Potter volume). It’s published by Gamewright and retails for $15.99. Continue Reading “Teamwork Is the Key to Escaping Forbidden Island” »